Wayland Flowers

Wayland Parrott Flowers Jr. (November 26, 1939 – October 11, 1988) was an American actor, comedian and puppeteer. Flowers was best known for the comedy act he created with his puppet Madame. His performances as "Wayland Flowers and Madame" were a major national success on stage and on screen in the 1970s and 1980s. Flowers is frequently cited as a ventriloquist despite the fact that he made no effort to conceal that he was voicing his characters (Madame's infamous opening line was, "You may have noticed Wayland is no ventriloquist and I'm no fuckin' dummy"). He instead preferred to be called an "illusionist," because onlookers tended to focus their attention on his animated puppets, who seemed to do all the talking. Early life Wayland Parrott Flowers Jr. was born November 26, 1939, in Dawson, Georgia, the second of three children. His father soon shipped off to World War II and was killed, leaving him to be raised in a devoutly religious all-female household, save for his younger brother. There was a neighborhood girl whom he liked to play with dolls with, but this was socially unacceptable for a boy in 1940s Georgia, so he would wrap up the dolls in paper bags, bring them to her house, and they would play in the garage away from prying eyes. As he reached adulthood, his mother pushed him to go to college, so he spent a year-and-a-half at Young Harris College, transferred to Rollins College, and then dropped out and enlisted in the Coast Guard. While stationed in Connecticut, he traveled to New York City, saw the Broadway productions of Gypsy and West Side Story, and fell in love with the city. He briefly returned to Atlanta, decided he was unhappy there, hitchhiked to New York City with $5 in his pocket, and began living the life of a struggling artist.